Gov’t Rebukes Fujiya for Using Old Ingredients, Not Providing Data
By Kyodo News International, Tokyo
Jan. 17–TOKYO — Senior government officials rebuked Fujiya Co. President Rintaro Fujii on Wednesday for the confectionery maker’s use of out-of-date ingredients for cream puffs and other sweets that they said could affect consumers’ confidence in food products.
They also criticized Fujiya for failing to provide appropriate data to local government inspectors of a Fujiya factory and urged the president to faithfully cooperate with these inspectors.
Fujiya has suspended sales at its cake shops nationwide since last Thursday following reports that the company repeatedly used ingredients past their expiry date for cream puffs. The firm has also extended expiry dates for some products beyond its in-house guidelines.
“The scandal could affect consumers’ confidence in food products on sale and is extremely regrettable,” the health ministry’s Food Safety Department Director General Kiyomichi Fujisaki told Fujii, who has offered to resign to take responsibility for the scandal.
“Such a scandal for a food maker is a matter of grave concern,” the agriculture ministry’s General Food Policy Bureau Director General Masaaki Okajima told the Fujiya president.
Fujisaki also complained that a factory has failed to provide accurate data to inspectors. Fujiya revealed Tuesday its Saitama factory continued using confectionery ingredients past their expiry date until early this month, reversing last week’s statement that it had stopped the practice last November.
The Tuesday revelation prompted local government officials to conduct their second inspections of the Saitama factory and another plant in Saga Prefecture on Wednesday after the first ones last week.
After local government officials give inspection reports on Fujiya plants nationwide, the two ministries will look into whether Fujiya has violated the food sanitation law or the Japanese agriculture standard law, their officials said.
In another development Wednesday, Fujiya officials said the company had failed to publicize a food poisoning incident caused by one of its products in 1995.
In the incident, nine people in western Japan reported symptoms of food poisoning, such as vomiting and diarrhea, after eating a Fujiya confectionery product between June 23 and 28 that year, they said.
Fujiya reported the food poisoning incident to a healthcare center in Izumisano, Osaka Prefecture, where a Fujiya plant that made the product was located, they said.
The company temporarily halted operations at the plant, cleaned the facility and recalled the product, the officials said.
The healthcare center refrained from publicizing the incident because the number of people affected was below the legal standard subject to publication, the officials said.
While sales of fresh cake products at Fujiya’s retail outlets nationwide have remained suspended, supermarket store chains have removed Fujiya confectionery and beverage products from their shelves.
In addition, Sapporo Beverage Co., which sells Fujiya beverage products under a contract with the confectionery maker, has been removing these products from vending machines nationwide, Sapporo Beverage officials said Wednesday.
Sapporo Beverage is expected to consider canceling the sales contract if the Fujiya scandal worsens. Fujiya’s beverage division reported some 4.8 billion yen in sales for the business year to the end of March 2006.
Concerned that these moves would seriously affect earnings at Fujiya, the company issued a statement Wednesday claiming its confectionery and beverage products available at retail stores other than Fujiya cake shops are safe.
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